Blue Jays Discussion: Off-Season V: Baseball's back and so are blockbusters (Jays send 4 prospects to A's for 3B Matt Chapman)

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Eyedea

The Legend Continues
Jan 29, 2012
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Toronto, Ontario
Exactly. It's just so new and such a dramatic change from Dunedin as our A+ team that I genuinely don't know whether they plan to send a guy like Orlevis there immediately.

Might as well start getting used to a cooler start to the season because it’ll be worse when he gets to the east coast next spring. Sets up the ideal scenario of A+/AA this season then AAA next year. No sense in skipping Van with it being full season now.
 
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Morgs

#16 #34 #44 #88 #91
Jul 12, 2015
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Owning an MLB team is so bad, these guys need to get a second job. Sucks.


f*** Blitzer.

Screenshot_20220325-144802_Chrome.jpg
 

phillipmike

Registered User
Oct 27, 2009
12,695
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Cleveland doesnt want to spend a few million on their team but they are willing to spend a couple billion on a soccer team.
 

The Nemesis

Semper Tyrannus
Apr 11, 2005
89,250
33,861
Langley, BC
What is the difference between the two leagues?

Just talent level. The oddity of the naming setup is just because the levels were named back when each team didn't have 5-7 tiers of development. But once they locked in the single through triple A nomenclature it would've weirded people out to suddenly have to call the top tier AAAAAA or 6A or something to adjust for the bottom end. So we stuck with AAA and AA and just made the low end about having various A names, rookie ball and the summer/instructional leagues.
 

hockeywiz542

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May 26, 2008
16,072
5,119

As the challenges of the pandemic finally start to ease, the payroll, a rebuilt roster chock full of star talent, the minor-league system and the overall mindset of the entire organization all seem to be in great shape with the 2022 season on the horizon.

Starting in April, the revenue will start to return, as well, leaving very few major items left to check off the to-do list.

Except one.

And it’s absolutely going to be the hardest one to achieve.

“I hope we have one or two world championship trophies in the case,” Shapiro said of where he hopes the Blue Jays are as an organization in two years. “That’s what I hope we look like.”

Climbing that hill will be difficult, but the Jays are better equipped to do it than all but a handful of teams in baseball.

The plan Shapiro pitched to Rogers ownership six years ago has become mostly reality, maybe even a little quicker than the soon-to-be 55-year-old executive thought.

“There was a plan laid out five or six years ago, and they never unfold exactly as you think, but things have unfolded as we proposed,” Shapiro said.


Coming off a 91-win season with a pair of MVP candidates and the AL Cy Young winner that somehow, someway didn’t end in a trip to the postseason, Shapiro feels the amended group put together by GM Ross Atkins and his front office has improved and is one that’s prepared to deal with the ups and downs that come with the marathon that’s in front of them.

“Better than 91 wins,” Shapiro said when asked how good this Jays club can be this year. “The reality of 162 games is that there’s going to be some things that we can’t foresee that are going to happen. How well you adjust to the unknowns — injuries or uncertainties or anything that could come up — is often the test of a team. But I do feel like we are better prepared for the unknowns than any other team could be because of what we went through the last two years.”
 
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MarkusKetterer

Shoulda got one game in
Love the Guardians owner being in on that kind of purchase but won’t spend anything on his mlb team

The plus side is that owning Chelsea is basically an ability to print money.

Unfortunately it means a hell of a lot longer for me to see Cleveland compete as they’re basically the Marlins of the AL. And I still hate the name change
 
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hockeywiz542

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May 26, 2008
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Why bloody blisters are always welcome for Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman - Sportsnet.ca

He knows pitchers who periodically rub their hands against abrasive surfaces throughout the day, aiming to desensitize the nerve endings in their fingers. Gausman often does that one himself, rubbing his fingers against the pinstripe on the pant leg of his uniform. Orioles clubbies hated doing his laundry, because Gausman's pants were perpetually covered with dried dots of blood.

It's merely part of Gausman’s between-starts finger care routine, which he’s honed through constant experimentation over his nine-year MLB career. It starts immediately following an outing, when Gausman returns to the clubhouse to have his fresh blister popped, drained, and filled from a syringe with zinc oxide, which helps break down collagen and promotes healing.

Over the next several days, Gausman will use a small laser pen emitting light at high wavelengths to deliver energy into the tissue in and around the blister, helping it heal. That’s taken some trial-and-error, as it’s a relatively recent advancement in blister-healing technology. Five two-minute lasering sessions per day seems to be the sweet spot.


“If you do it for too long, man, it gets hot,” Gausman says. “You can burn yourself pretty easily doing it.”

The day after his start is uncomfortable. The day after that, a little less so. And by day three after an outing, the blister has typically healed enough for Gausman to be able to throw his bullpen.

Of course, he can’t throw his splitter in that side session — that would just create another blister. This has not gone over well with several pitching coaches Gausman has worked with in his career. Let me get this straight, they’ll say. You can’t work on your most important pitch between outings?

“They’re like, ‘No, we need to throw it. We need to work on it.’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t do it. Do you want me to miss my start?’” Gausman says. “I've had so many people that are like, 'Oh, why don't you try to change your grip?’ Or, ‘Why don't you stop throwing your split?’ And I'm like, 'That's not an option.'”


.................................

So, just as the extraordinary results it produces — hitters mustered an absurdly low .192 xwOBA against Gausman’s splitter in 2021, the lowest of any MLB offering — are part and parcel to his success, so, too, are the blisters.

And the pitch doesn’t only create blisters on his skin — it cracks Gausman’s fingernail, as well. He’s already sporting bruising underneath his nail early in spring training from live batting practice sessions — and he knows it’ll get progressively worse and worse throughout the season as his nail cracks from the pressure.


Before MLB began policing its foreign substance ban, Gausman would reinforce the nail with an adhesive before taking the mound. He’s tried everything. Superglue. Fake nail products. A MacGyvered band-aid and glue combination.

“The superglue can be tricky, though. It gets too hard. And when you have something hard trying to be pliable on a dry surface, it has a tendency to rip,” he says. “That’s where a lot of guys get in trouble. They try to put superglue on a cut or a blister and it just creates more tension. That’s when they’ll rip their blister wide open. That’s when you see some pictures of it, and it’s like, ‘Oh my god — he’s going to miss a start or two.’”

Nowadays, Gausman uses a product called Dermabond — or 2-Octyl cyanoacrylate, if you want to be fancy — to glue his nail together between starts and give it a chance to heal. It takes him 5-10 minutes with tape remover and a file to get it off before his outings. In his nail kit, Gausman has a selection of tiny tools from a company called Tweezerman that he uses to meticulously dig under his nail and pick out bits of adhesive.

“It’s like liquid plastic,” he says. “Sometimes it gets under your nail and sticks to your skin, and that’s when you can rip open an already open wound and make it a lot worse. And if you don’t get it all off, it can just make the callus even bigger. It adds more pressure and weight on my finger.”

Ultimately, this is Gausman’s lot in life. He chose to throw baseballs for a living, chose to throw this particularly uncommon pitch. Constant blisters are just what comes with it. And it’s with him forever. He already has permanent scar tissue from all the blisters. He exposes it every off-season when he files his skin all the way down to let it regrow. It’ll probably get worse over his next five years in Toronto.
 

Puckstuff

Registered User
May 12, 2010
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Milton
I'm thinking I want to see Chapman 3rd, Vladdy 4th, and Teo 5th.

Chapman will get more fastballs in the history of mankind.
If they want to get Chapman more fastballs put him in the 2 spot like they did with Semien and Vladdy #3. I don't want to put Vladdy below #3 but I like Canaucksfan lineup. Gurriel is still good protection for Chapman.
 

Puckstuff

Registered User
May 12, 2010
11,353
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Milton
He doesn’t get a Moreno or Orelvis level prospect in July so that is good with me
If Biggio takes off this year and becomes a top 10 2B with a .800 + Ops and good D I wonder if they still target Ramirez with Biggio having 4 years of control vs Ramirez having 2. I’ve been dreaming of Ramirez for a while but I gotta admit Ketel Marte makes a lot of sense if they believe he can also be a good outfield option. This is why I really wanted the other Marte in FA but his brother is a good option too.
 
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kb

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Aug 28, 2009
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“He also hits the ball really hard,” Atkins said. “So, we’ll see. The more that I'm in this game, the more confident I am that, not just the Toronto Blue Jays, but the industry can help players continue to improve. And if there's ways for us to help him, we'll certainly look to do that.”

Atkins is right — Tapia posted an impressive, 109.9-mph maximum exit velocity last season, which ranked among the top 30 per cent of MLB hitters. And when he connects, he really connects. Tapia’s average home run distance last season — on a sample of only a half-dozen long balls, mind you — was 414 feet, the ninth-highest mark in baseball.

Remember how many times you watched Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit no-doubters deep into the night sky last year? Guerrero’s average home run distance was five feet less than Tapia’s at 409.

So, there’s obviously quite a bit of pop here. But Tapia’s yet to tap into it consistently over the course of his career, putting up average exit velocities of 85.3 per cent in 2020 and 85.7 in 2021, both of which ranked in the bottom six per cent of the league.
 
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